Fall From Grace
by One Fine Wire
Summary: Wearing bunny pajamas wasn't the only thing that cost Iggy his popularity. His popularity wasn't the only thing he lost. He lost so much more.


**Fall From Grace**

When Iggy Baxter woke up, showered, ate breakfast, brushed his teeth, and went through his typical morning routine of getting ready for school, he was sure that he retained his "cool kid" status among his classmates at P.S. 118 that he worked so hard to maintain. Never mind that he wore bunny pajamas; he was sure that everyone at school and in the neighborhood forgot that he wore them now that his former friend and classmate, Arnold, publicly humiliated himself while parading down the street in said pajamas, doing so under the guise that Iggy would only forgive him if he humiliated himself in front of the entire city.

After putting on his backpack and stepping outside, he pondered the events of yesterday, where he told Arnold that the only way he could obtain forgiveness was by donning a pair of Iggy's bunny pajamas for all to see. Watching Arnold, humiliated, walking up the street to greet Iggy upon his makeshift throne, didn't give the satisfaction he thought it would. The moments leading up to Arnold's embarrassing reveal were exciting, though; justice would finally be served, and all of Hillwood would watch in delight, laughing as Arnold, humiliated beyond comprehension, the remorse for what he did, finally kicking in, would approach Iggy from where he sat and beg for forgiveness. Buying chocolates and doing his chores for an entire week wasn't enough for Iggy Baxter. It simply wasn't. If Arnold embarrassed Iggy in front of every student and teacher at P.S. 118, then he would have to embarrass himself in front of the entire city receive Iggy's forgiveness.

This was supposed to be the greatest moment of Iggy's life.

But it wasn't.

His face remained stoic as he watched Arnold, blushing deeply, walk toward him, his eyes exposing a deep sadness while he took in the cruel laughter and taunts that surrounded him. Iggy was far from amused as he watched his friend take the fall for him. The regret seeped in when he learned that it wasn't _Arnold _who spilled the beans about his habit, but _Sid and Stinky._

After the fiasco ended, Iggy went over to Arnold's house later that evening to apologize, but Arnold didn't buy it. He glared at Iggy and continued ignoring him as Iggy offered to do his chores and wait on his hand and foot if Arnold would only pretend that the whole incident never happened. Iggy followed Arnold around the neighborhood that entire evening, and when Arnold made it back to his house, he shut the door in Iggy's face and seemed determined to never speak to him again.

"No matter," Iggy rationalized out loud to himself as he waited outside for the bus to arrive, "I _do _feel bad about what I did to Arnold, but at least people will forget that I wear bunny pajamas. I'll be cool again, right?"

_"You!"_

Iggy turned and noticed Ms. Vitello across the street from his apartment carrying a bag of groceries. "You were the one who made Arnold wear the bunny pajamas yesterday, right?"

The young boy gulped nervously. She didn't sound impressed with his act, or happy with him at all.

_"That wasn't a very nice thing you did!" _she shouted at him.

"You laughed at him!" Iggy retorted, "You thought it was funny!"

_"It still was mean of you," _she shot back loudly, as she continued walking up the street with her groceries in hand.

"But – "

The bus arrived.

_"Relax, Iggy," _he thought to himself, as he stepped onto the bus and put his fifty cents into the slot, _"So what if she didn't think you were nice about what happened? You don't have to buy flowers from her anymore… you still have friends, you're still popular."_

He looked up after paying the bus fare, only to see the bus driver glaring at him, along with his schoolmates on the bus. He walked down the bus aisle slowly, trying to find an empty seat. Toward the end of the bus, he saw Stinky sitting by himself. Iggy approached him.

Recoiling, Stinky asked, while shuddering, "_You're not going to make me do what you made Arnold do yesterday, are you?"_

"No," Iggy sighed, "I was going to ask if I could sit with you."

Stinky straightened up and answered, "No, on account of how it was really mean of you to make Arnold wear those bunny pajamas in front of the entire city like that."

Rolling his eyes slightly, Iggy turned to Sid, who sat behind Stinky and asked, "Sid, may I sit with you?"

"I'm with Stinky on this one," Sid said coolly, "That was a _real dirty trick _you pulled yesterday." He subtly pointed his thumb to the back of the bus, but Iggy caught it. He realized his popularity had yet to be recovered as he sat next to Eugene and Sheena, reluctantly taking the two brown paper bags his classmates offered him, which he could use to empty his insides, just in case.

…

After nearly throwing up the contents of his breakfast on the bus ride to school, Iggy hopped off the bus and walked into the doors of P.S. 118. Stinky and Sid didn't think his actions yesterday were anything noteworthy, and they sneered condescendingly at Iggy as they watched him walk to his locker. _Big deal! _Iggy still had friends, didn't he? He knew what he did yesterday was wrong, that he should've been better and simply forgiven Arnold instead of forcing him to wear bunny pajamas in the hot sun in front of his family, friends, and everyone in Hillwood… but that didn't mean Iggy had to lose his popularity over the whole debacle! Since preschool, he had the reputation for being the coolest kid in class, and he had that reputation to uphold!

He _refused _to lose that, and while it was cruel and unusual to force Arnold into abject humiliation for something he didn't do, but that Iggy _thought _he did, he didn't care about how wrong the act was, or the fact that he and Arnold were no longer friends. If he retained his popularity, what did one friendship matter?

Even if the act was wrong?

While opening his locker, he heard Helga say, "So, Pheebs, was it fun or what, seeing old Football Head don those bunny pajamas, practically kneeling at Iggy's 'throne', begging for forgiveness?"

"Well, Helga," Phoebe reasoned, shutting her locker, "I suppose it was rather humorous at the moment, but now looking back on yesterday's event, I was not amused by it at all."

"Come on!" Helga exclaimed, "You have to admit that was a pretty classic moment."

"I actually felt _bad _for _Ice Cream,_" Phoebe replied pointedly. "I actually sympathize for him now." Lowering her voice, the young girl told her friend, "I thought you would too, Helga."

Peeking out from behind the locker door, Iggy watched as Helga gulped despairingly while she watched her friend walk away from her. Clutching her chest, the young girl ran off and took a sharp turn down the hallway, seeming to retrieve something from her shirt. Squinting into the distance, Iggy's eyes widened in shock when he saw that the object she now clutched close to her was a heart shaped locket with Arnold's picture.

"_Good God," _Iggy muttered, slamming his locker shut with a loud clang and a dash of bitterness, _"Even Arnold has the sympathy and love of the class bully." _He trudged to class, receiving a glare from Big Patty and a few of the fifth and sixth graders before finally making it into Mr. Simmons' class. To his relief, Arnold was deeply absorbed in one of his favorite Agatha Caufield novels, and didn't notice him walk in. Mr. Simmons, writing out the morning's history lesson greeted Iggy cheerfully as usual, but the rest of his classmates only had cold, angry frowns and cold glares for him. Helga shot him a glare as Iggy took his seat.

"You know," Rhonda Lloyd, the richest girl in class, and in all of Hillwood, said, turning to face him, "What you did to Arnold yesterday was just awful. It was utterly _inhumane, _forcing him to walk all over Hillwood in that unfashionable frock. You ought to be _ashamed _of yourself_._" Placing a heavy envelope with fancy calligraphy written upon it onto his desk, she whispered, "I'm throwing a party next week; _cool kids only. _You'd be on my geek list, but you and I know perfectly well that I'd never hear the end of it from my parents if I didn't invite you, since you and your mother are the patron family that my mother and father donate their money to every year to ensure that the two of you have an enjoyable holiday season."

Iggy winced, Rhonda's comments humiliating him deeply even though no one else heard them. She and Arnold, since he dropped his homework off to him, setting off this whole disaster, were the only ones who knew of his poverty-stricken background.

"I'll be passing out the rest of the invitations next week," Rhonda continued coldly, "And I plan on inviting Arnold to my cool party. Be nice or I'll take you off my cool list and ask my parents to choose a different family for Christmas this year. Got it?"

Iggy nodded as put the envelope into his backpack, hoping that the day would only get better, and not worse.

…

Why did this happen to him? Why did he receive the cruel glares from his classmates, other students at P.S. 118, and those in the neighborhood, from Mr. Green to Harvey the mailman, to the elderly lady who insisted on walking her obnoxious pet poodle right by his apartment every week? Why was he resigned to eating lunch alone while everyone else had his or her friends to eat with? Why did he have to sneak into Arnold's "Geek Party" when he declared that Rhonda's "Cool Party" was much too boring? Why did _Arnold _have _everyone's _sympathy and friendship? He helped reenact the famous Pig War and won, was put in charge of the annual spring dance, and played Romeo in the class rendition of _Romeo and Juliet._

Even when people turned against Arnold momentarily, whether they tired of him giving them advice, or found his claim that an old lady with pink hair, a pegged leg, and an eye patch retrieved her bag of money that he, Gerald, and Sid found on the bus ludicrous, they always came back to him in the end. They always came back to the ever-present Arnold Shortman, relying on him to give advice, or to help them, and for a long time, everyone apologized for not believing his earlier statement about the elderly lady, since they knew him to be an honest, trustworthy person. He was like a god to these people, and it made Iggy sick. How was it that one bad act in the fourth grade followed him everywhere? Didn't people know that he regretted putting Arnold into that position? Wasn't that enough? Why did he have to lose his popularity and friendships because of it?

Iggy sighed when thinking about that particular incident. That could've been Arnold's downfall, and Iggy had a hell of a time bringing Arnold over to the tetherball pole with every intention of tying him to it.

Looking at himself in the mirror, Iggy realized that he hadn't had a _true _friend in a _long _time. _Nobody _in Hillwood forgot about the fiasco where he forced Arnold to wear a pair of his bunny pajamas and grovel for forgiveness. People still reprimanded him to this day for the torturous act.

The last time Iggy had real friends, it was when he became addicted to _The King Rules_, a role playing card game set during medieval times. Ironically, he'd been brought into the all-consuming game by Gerald Johanssen, Arnold's best friend and confidante. The two of them got together, along with Edmund, Big Gino, and Mickey, the short, fifth grader who resembled a weasel in the shed behind Doctor Steiglitz's office to play against each other in a dark-lit room, where they all fought hard to be king, letting the game consume their lives and take them away from what was really important.

Of course, it had to be Arnold who saved them all from their demise and helped them see things as they really were.

And naturally, only Arnold could save the school play, _Eugene, Eugene! _and restore the play to its original ending, despite playing the conniving villain, Lawrence, while Iggy, who auditioned for the play at his mother's insistence, stayed in the background as a member of the chorus.

He watched as Arnold saved the neighborhood from being turned into a suburban mall, rescued all of San Lorenzo, as well as their class from La Sombra, the evil river pirate, his forces, and ultimate destruction, found his parents who'd been missing for nearly a decade, and brought them home again.

"There's nothing Arnold _can't _do, is there?" Iggy sighed, as combed his light brown, straight hair that refused to do anything but hang languidly from his head.

While experimenting with numerous styling gels to see if his hair would do anything but lay flatly on his head, he recalled witnessing those few years of Arnold's tumultuous courtship with Helga before they broke up, but remained friends. When Arnold left Hillwood at the age of thirteen to jet set around the world with his parents, everyone, especially Helga, felt the void deeply.

Iggy felt it most of all. The two of them hadn't spoken since the day Arnold took the blame for Sid and Stinky. He knew his apology the first time around went horribly wrong, and he never knew how to make up for it. At that moment, while sitting upon his cheaply made throne, waiting for Arnold to approach him in a pair of bunny pajamas, coming to repentance, Iggy never contemplated the possibility of that single act having repercussions that would last for years. Iggy was now a brand new high school graduate with plans to attend Hillwood Community College in the fall. He had no idea what he wanted to do with his life. Since "performing" in his class' fourth grade production of _Eugene, Eugene!_, Iggy stopped participating in extracurricular activities and became a drifter all throughout the rest of his schooldays, who simply attended school and never put himself out there, never seeing the reason to do so.

He still looked the same, for the most part. He was taller now, but his thin build was hidden behind the excess twenty pounds he gained during his senior year of high school. The extra, gluttonous fat sat on his stomach and face, as though refusing to integrate itself into the rest of his body. His hair was still the unchanged, straight, light brown that refused to be styled, and his skin, though still tanned, looked a little pale.

After looking at his hair in the mirror and resigning to letting it stay straight and lanky as usual, the young man brushed his teeth twice and used a strong mouthwash before sighing nervously and exiting the bathroom. He put on a pair of jeans, a light green shirt, and sunglasses before walking out of his apartment, his childhood home. He took the stairs slowly, and upon exiting from the building, began walking toward Gerald Field.

The date was August twentieth. It was nice and sunny outside, the skies were cloudless, and it wasn't too hot, not too cold, but just right. Considering that Hillwood received the occasional heat wave during the month of August, this was a welcome treat.

Today was the day Gerald designated for everyone to come together and say goodbye before heading off to begin their real lives. Iggy wasn't friends with any of these people, but he'd been invited for old time's sake. Everyone, for the most part, was separating.

Rhonda was off to the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising in Los Angeles, California.

Nadine was accepted to the University of Hawaii at Manoa at the beginning of senior year, and planned on studying Marine Biology and Zoology.

Gerald and Phoebe, who were voted the "Cutest Couple" of their graduating class, planned to live together while they attended Columbia University. Gerald planned to study Broadcasting and Journalism while Phoebe's motives were turned toward Biomedical Engineering.

Curly was going to State, but wasn't sure what he wanted to major in.

Lila, who looked forward to returning to her hometown and country roots as the place to receive her higher education, was leaving later in the evening for Alfred University, where she declared herself as a History major.

Sid, Eugene, Brainy, and Sheena would join Iggy at Hillwood Community, but they all had plans and ambitions. Sid planned on transferring to State after two years and eventually graduate with a Photography degree. Brainy made arrangements to receive his Associates of Science in Nursing before figuring out _what _exactly it was he wanted to do in the medical field, and Eugene and Sheena planned on opening their own theatre in the Big Apple after graduating with their two year degrees in Theatre Performance.

Harold planned to buy ownership of Mr. Green's meat shop upon his retirement, and had already been working for the butcher since high school graduation.

Stinky decided to return to his roots back in Arkansas, and would be leaving tomorrow morning, and Lorenzo was off to Spain to study Communications at the European University of Barcelona.

Everyone had a plan. Everyone except Iggy seemed to have something going for them. He wished he could kick his fourth grade self for not realizing that the one act that was supposed to make everything right again would ruin everything and cost him so much more than his so-called "fame."

Meanwhile, Helga was taking a year off to teach English in Russia before beginning her university education. Before going to Russia however, she planned on spending some time in England, and was leaving just three days after Stinky. Though Helga had the notorious reputation for being a headstrong bully, Iggy always admired the young woman for her passion, tenacity, stubbornness, willingness to speak her mind, bold manner of doing things, and determination. She blossomed over the summer, growing from the pigtailed, mono browed, scowling girl to the young woman she was now. She no longer wore her hair in the pigtails or the bright pink bow she'd donned since preschool, or the dark blue hat she took to wearing during the gang's high school years. Now, her long, blonde hair fell to her waist in thick, attractive waves. Subtle curves enhanced her overall figure, and her infamous unibrow was now long gone and replaced with two, thin eyebrows. She was stunning. She was also the only person who still spoke to him.

"Hey, Iggy," she greeted him as he approached the rest of the P.S. 118 gang, "How's summer treating you?"

"It's fine," Iggy shrugged. "Nothing's really happened, though. It's just the same old routine." He turned to her, and noticing that she was unimpressed by his bad attitude, said, "You must be really excited about going to Russia. You're headed to London first, right?" Helga nodded. "How come?"

"_Just because," _Helga said casually, smiling at Iggy.

"How long will you be in England for before going to Russia?" he asked.

"_It depends," _Helga said slyly, _"On a few things."_

"Like what?" Iggy asked, as he watched Helga play with the golden locket she wore around her neck.

When Iggy saw a young man with an oblong head in the distance surrounded by his classmates, coming toward Helga, he knew _who _Helga's stay in London depended on. He watched enviously as Helga turned around and approached the young man, but not before looking down, opening her locket, and smiling widely at the picture of Arnold Shortman that was inside of it. She looked up at him, and Iggy watched the exchange, knowing that Arnold only had eyes for her. Taking his hand, she walked with him toward the scene of the party, where the two exchanged a deep, passionate kiss.

…

Arnold still looked the same to Iggy, though it was clear to anyone who saw their old classmate that he looked completely different. He was taller now, and his hair was still blonde and messy, but it was no longer spiky. Arnold sported a shorter hairstyle now, but still kept the same, blue cap he always wore during his days in Hillwood. He was lean, but still muscular, and wore a long sleeved, red and blue plaid shirt with a pair of blue jeans and black Converse shoes.

Despite this, all Iggy saw was a nine-year-old Arnold, and he knew why.

While watching Arnold associate and joke with his old friends and classmates, reminiscing about their childhood, putting his arms around Helga's waist, showering her with sincere, heartfelt kisses, and informing his friends that he'd be attending Cambridge University, studying International Relations and Medicine, Iggy had never felt so alone before in his life. All the other moments throughout his childhood and teenage years where he felt nothing but feelings of helplessness and unwanted solitude paled in comparison to this moment.

Iggy knew that his apology to Arnold was long overdue, but watching him with everyone, seeing how carefree and happy was, made the remorseful young man realize that the apology would be more for _his _peace of mind as opposed to _Arnold's._

This, Iggy, realized, was his fall from grace.

It was the fact that he'd taken something so insignificant, something that wouldn't mean anything in the years to come out of context. It was the fact that he let his "popularity" determine his happiness. It was the fact that he deliberately hurt his friend Arnold – a good, decent kid who gave so much and received so little in return. It was the fact that he did this for the sake of getting his "status" back and making others forget _his _embarrassing episode at the sake of someone else's self-respect, knowing fully well that he was consciously hurting someone else. It was the fact that he didn't even _know _the truth behind how his classmates became aware of what he wore to bed each night, before instantly assuming that Arnold was the culprit.

It was the fact that Iggy wanted revenge and did not contemplate how much it affected others, especially when it was against the wrong target.

His fall from grace came from the realization that two wrongs don't make a right.

Iggy looked up at Arnold amidst the party atmosphere of their childhood hangout. The young blonde nodded at Iggy and smiled. He mouthed the words, _"Come join us!" _and seemed truly genuine about wanting Iggy to come join in the fun.

Iggy, however, shook his head, turned around, and walked away from Gerald Field. He didn't belong there.

Walking back to his apartment as the sun set, poor Iggy Baxter had an epiphany.

He learned the hard way, and was still learning, that wearing bunny pajamas wasn't what cost him his grade school fame.

Iggy Baxter fell from grace a long time ago, and would be picking up the pieces for the rest of his life.


End file.
